Some pickup truck designs include an extended cab with forward-facing rear seats. A problem associated with placing rear seats in the pickup truck cab is that it reduces the storage capacity of the cab, because the presence of the rear seats and associated desirable legroom for rear seat occupants can interfere with the ability to store objects such as jack packages, subwoofers, and other cargo.
It can be desirable in production vehicle bodies including pickup trucks with extended cabs, to have a flat floor pan in the rear occupant foot rest area, in front of the rear vehicle seats. A flat floor pan provides a friendly surface to slide cargo thus making it easy for customers to carry large cargo (e.g. TV package, large boxes, golf bags etc) A flat floor also improves the rear center occupant's sitting stance. Traditional structural elements providing attachment for rear seats and passenger restraints were located under the floor pan, which may not be feasible with certain flat floor pan designs. However, attachment of rear seats and passenger restraints having a given stiffness and strength must nevertheless be accommodated in vehicle's having such a flat floor pan.
Further, it is desirable to facilitate storage in vehicles having such a flat floor pan, although the rear occupant's foot rest area should remain free of designed-in obstacles.